The costs of selling your home in Rancho Santa Margarita can be quite unexpected. These costs can be a bummer if you did not know about them beforehand and they can really make the expected profits take a big hit. Let’s take a look at these surprising costs you didn’t know existed.
1. Light and Heat
Believe it or not, you have to cater for these expenses if you are selling your home while it sits empty. You would not want your potential buyers encountering a cold and dark house when they come to prospect, would you? No one wants to fumble around while checking out the rooms.
This also makes it easier for the person to tell if they like your home. A warm home is cozier and easier to settle into. Make sure that you leave the heat and light on before the sale or have a plan to ensure they are kept on when potential buyers and agents stop by. To have a rough estimate of how much this will cost, use statistics from your current bills.
2. Repairs and Landscaping
Run a quick maintenance check on your house to make sure that it’s in great condition for sale. Fixing damaged windows and repainting are some of the repairs that you might encounter. However, major remodels can be left out of the cost of selling your home as this can be left for the buyer.
If your home has a garden or a yard, you should expect to incur landscaping expenses among the costs of selling your home. While your home sits in waiting, the grass in the yard and the weed in the garden do not. As such, you should prepare to pay landscapers to trim the garden up for you if you cannot do it yourself.
One never knows when buyers will stop by and you always have to ensure that your home is in great shape in order to appeal to the buyers’ eyes. Since the yard is the first place they see, you should make a point of making it presentable every now and then.
3. Staging
This may be unnecessary, but can really impress buyers and even make them pay more for your home. Should you decide to stage (and here’s why you should know how to), prepare yourself to pay a decorator or an interior designer to help organize and maybe even refurnish your home.
You might also want to consider adding decorative items to your home to make it more appealing. Home staging can be quite expensive but totally worth it if you’re up for it.
4. Closing Costs and Home Warranty for the Buyer
Depending on your agreement with the buyer, you might have to cater for the standard costs that are associated with the closure of the deal. These fees include paying the escrow company, recording, and transfer of the property, insurance, among others.
Under normal circumstances, these costs may add up to between 2% and 4% of the total selling price.
To make your buyer feel secure about purchasing your home, it is wise to buy a home warranty on their behalf. This is a small service contract that would cover repairs to certain systems and appliances within the house during the first year of ownership. It would cost around $500.
This cost, however, does not match up to the benefits it accrues in terms of trust build-up between you and the buyer.
5. Pre-inspection Reports
This may not be entirely necessary. However, if you have lived in your home for a long time, it may have to fall into the costs of selling your home. This is because there may be some problems that come up that you are completely oblivious to.
It would be preferable to know about such issues and have them fixed before your buyer finds out about them and get upset about them. This would derail negotiations between you and you might end up without a sale.
As a home seller, you should be ready to face the cost of selling your home. Remember, meeting these costs guarantees that your home is sold quicker and with less of a fuss from your buyer. Some of these costs even guarantee that you get the amount you want from the house! Add value to your home by meeting these costs.
Give Us a Call!
If you’re still trying to figure out how to calculate the costs of selling your home, call us at 949-350-0146 or email us at Debrakovacs@cox.net and we can give you more tips that can get your property moving today!
